DECIPHERING INDUS SCRIPT DR N A BALOCH

DECIPHERMENT OF

THE INDUS SCRIPT'

OF THE SINDHU

CIVILIZATION

DR. N.A. BALOCH

The historical evidence of the Sindhi Language that is available to us so far,
although of a considerable magnitude, is limited to certain documentary proofs
going back to only about twelve to thirteen centuries (early eighth century AD).
The earlier period spreading over a stretch of sixteen hundred years— from the
twelfth century BC, the end of the old historical period of the Indus Valley
Civilization, to the fourth century of the Common Era — indicating supremacy of
the Buddhist and Iranian rulers and invasions of Greeks, the Central Asian Yueh-
chis, and the Scythians — provides rather insignificant documentary details which
would shed any light on the language of Moen-jo-daro or Harapa. Still an earlier
period (from 1800 BC to 1200 BC) suggests incursions of Dravidians, Aryans, and
other Non-Aryan tribes indicating a time of intense flux. This period also has so
far yielded no documentary proofs regarding the nature of the language spoken in
this area during the mature days of the Indus valley civilization.

TABLE 1: Showing periods of historical "gaps' in the Indus Valley Civilization:

Events in Sindh

PERIOD

Sources of Reference

Pre-Indus Valley arch, evidence

3500 BC-
2500 BC

Pottery from Sindh & Baluchistan

Highly sophisticated Indus Valley
Civilization

2500 BC-
1800 BC

Highly developed archeological evidence; Writing on
seals which is still undeciphered

Historical Gap (1): Incursions of
Dravidian, Aryan, & other Non-
Aryan tribes

1800 BC-
1200 BC

No local or outside records available; possible unexplored
references in Sumerian, Akkadian Cuneiform writings

Historical Gap (2)

1100BC- 600
BC

astray references in Old Testament

Historical Gap (3): Buddhists,
Iranians, Greeks, Yueh-Chis, &
Scythians supreme

600 BC - 600
AD

Minor ref. in Asoka's pillars, Vedas, Mahabharata,
Herodotus, Plutarch, Book of Esther (Artaxerxes' rule),

Rai- Brahman Dynasty of Chach &
Dahir

600 AD -712
AD

Written Arabic/ Persian records of Ali Kufi

Arab Dynasty

712 AD -

Ali Kufi, Al-Beiruni, Al-Baladhuri & other Arab writers

The historians have found it difficult to fill up the apparent "historical gap' of over
a millennium, from 1800 BC to 600 BC. However, the earlier period from 2500
BC to 1800 BC, the period of the highly sophisticated Indus Civilization, was
probably long enough to cover the duration of the "historical gap.' Traces of the
language that was used during the period of high civilization of the Indus Valley
are available for us inscribed in a script (the Indus Script) that has not been
deciphered so far. The inscriptions are on the 4000-odd Indus seals and writings
recovered from archeological excavations at sixty different sites including those at
Moen- Jo- Daro, Chanhu- Jo- Daro, and Harrapa in Pakistan, Kalibangan, Lothal,
Banawali, and Dholavira in India. In addition to these seals discovered in the
South Asian sub-continent, about 50 Indus seals have been found from other
neighbouring countries including the Near East. The Indus seals are made of two
substances which have survived the test of time: steatite, soapstone (or Meitu, in
Sindhi), or terracota (reddish brown pottery). The inscriptions are so mature and
sophisticated that it is tempting to presume the scribes and businessmen may have
used other materials for documenting other longer texts, most of which may not
have survived. However, it is still possible that a longer text written on stone or
other long-lasting material is waiting somewhere to be discovered.

In order to formulate a feasible hypothesis about v the Indus language' or v the Indus
languages,' it would be imperative for the researchers to look around for big or
small evidence from other sources so long as the evidence from within the Indus
valley area remains as meager as has been so far, without any definite long enough
texts which would shed light on the v Indus language or languages.' In order to
achieve this objective, we would need to study documents from some of the
ancient languages contemporaneous to the Indus valley civilization, extending
over linguistic groups such as Sumerian, Akkadian, Aramaic, Egyptian, Old
Turkic, Dardic, Romany, the language of the European gypsies supposedly from
India, Sanskrit, and Old Iranian languages. The most ideal situation would be to
have an in-depth working knowledge of those languages and study their scripts. A
study of the phenomenon of how ancient scripts evolved, how they were lost, and
how some of them have been rediscovered and deciphered in more recent times
might help us one day decipher the writings on the Indus seals. However, as the
evidence from the history of v decipherment' of ancient scripts shows, the script
will defy decipherment until two conditions are met:

a. For the language of the script, the scholars will have to abandon their
wild-goose chase of looking for the proto-type in Turan and South
India and look for the evidence within the land where the seals were
made and discovered.

b. Scholars may have to wait for the day when texts are found in a
bilingual or bi-script form. The script in addition to the v Indus Script'
will have to be one that the world already knows.

In addition to having a working knowledge of these languages, it would be
imperative to have a thorough knowledge of the language or languages spoken in
the valley during the known historical period, that is, the Sindhi, Lahanda, Punjabi,
Brahui, and other languages in their pristine form as spoken by peasants, leaving
out the traces of influences of Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic, and other modern
languages.

A number of renowned scholars of numerous nationalities have been trying to
decipher these writings since 1875. Some of the earlier scholars (like Langdon and
Gad and Hunter) initiating investigation into the Indus Script were British. In more
recent times, scholars from Finland, India, and Russia have been working on a
number of projects trying to decipher the ever illusive Indus script. The activity of
decipherment has relatively increased during the last half a century or six decades
and the tentative outcomes of such attempts have received a great deal of publicity.
However, it can safely be said that the research that has been carried out so far has

brought no tangible results. Nevertheless the basic preliminary spade-work that
has emerged so far would certainly be useful to the scholars in the future research.

So far all the seals found at various places of Moenjodaro or Harrapa have been
put together, classified, and numbered. The basic process of copying of the
original ideographic signs with their correct physical appearance has been
completed. These signs have been classified into 419 (or 500) various structural
elements or characters. Each one of the signs or characters has been assigned a
separate number and classified according to its shape and structure. Each one of
the seals has on average six characters and pictograms. The longest text has
twentysix characters, and the shortest, one. The longest one- line text has 14 signs.
This tortuous initial exercise of classifying pictograms, diacritical marks, and signs
has already been completed. It has also been more or less established that the script
runs from right to left.

The scholars from Scandinavia, Russia, and India, have already been using the
available data on their computers for data analysis trying to decipher the Indus
script. The script has so far defied all attempts towards decipherment. All the
efforts of the scholars in the modern studies aiming at reaching the Indus language
or languages through the Indus script have so far borne little fruit, and any hope of
a break-through towards decipherment of this script at an earlier date seems to be
far from immediate realization in near future unless there is a major discovery
bringing out larger texts with bilingual inscriptions. As a matter of fact, there is
little chance for an unknown script to lead scholars to an unknown language.

Scholars trying to decipher the seals and writings from the Indus Valley
Civilization, Moenjodaro and Harappa, need to remember that Indus Script has not
been the first script to have been lost to the posterity. The Cuneiform scripts of
various lands of the fertile crescent, the Hieroglyphic writings of the Egyptian
Pharaoic dynasties, and the Cretan Script of Greek islands had also been lost to the
posterity for centuries until they were rediscovered and deciphered through the
help of bilingual texts. The Cuneiform and the Hieroglyphics scripts carrying a
great amount of written records in the Sumerian, Akkadian, Hurrian, Hittite,
Elamite languages had been lost to mankind for eighteen hundred years until the
multi-lingual inscriptions of Dariush and Cyrus on Bisutun and Persepolis
inscriptions were found from those lands in more recent times and deciphered.
Similarly there had been no clues regarding the ancient Egyptian language for the
last fifteen hundred years until the Hieroglyphics were deciphered in 1822. The
hieroglyphics were not deciphered until the Rosetta Stone had been found from the
Egyptian excavations carrying a message in two languages and three scripts— one
of the languages, Greek, being a known language.

Script

Language

Users

flourished

was lost by

Replaced by

Cuneiform

Sumerian

Akkadian,
Ugaritic

Assyrians

Hurrian Hittite

Uruk traders
S argon,
Hammurabi
Cappadocian
Ashurbanipa
North Mespotamia

3200 BC

2279 BC
1750 BC
1950 BC
650 BC
700 BC
200 BC

650 BC
75 AD

Akkadian
Aramaic

Aramaic

Aramaic

lingua franca of Near
East

1000 BC

600 BC

Arabic, Hebrew,
Armenian

Elamite

Proto-Elamite

Elamites (Old
Persia)

3000- BC
2200 BC

2200 BC not
decip'd

Cuneiform

Hieroglyphi

cs

Old Egypt'n

Egyptians, holy text

3000 BC

400 AD
decip'd 1822

hieratic, demotic

Hieratic

Egypt'n

ordinary passages

400 AD
decip'd 1822

Greek, Roman

Demotic

Egypt'n

official documents,
labels for mummies

394 AD
decip'd 1822

Aramaic
Greek, Roman

Indus Script

Language of
Indus?

People of Indus
Valley

2500 BC

1900 BC
not decip'd

Brahmi,
Devnagri, Arabic

Phoenician

Phoenician

Lebanon, Syria

1000 BC

800 BC

Greek, Etruscan
Latin,

Cretan

Linear A
Linear B

Greek

2000 BC

1200 BC

Cyrillic, Greek

Greek

Greek

1000 BC

Still in use

Coptic, Gothic,
Cyrillic

Chinese

Chinese

China, Japan, Korea

2000 or
earlier

IS USED TO
DATE

CONTINUES
TO BE USED

Old
Hebrew

Hebrew,
Aramaic

Jewish Scriptures

1000 BC-
300 BC

NOT LOST

ARAMAIC, SQ
HEBREW

Kharosti

Pali

Northwestern India

5th C BC -5th
CAD

5th CAD

Brahmi & other
scripts

Brahmi

Gupta, Grantha,
Devnagri

As history shows previous
Hieroglyphics, Cuneiform),
attempts to penetrate their my
century AD), the Phaistos dis
far.

y undeciphered scripts to hav<
there remain several baffling ca;
steries. Besides Indus Script, we 1
c from Crete (17th century BC) wl

5

; been decipl
;es where scri
lave examples
uch have not b

lered (Linear B
pts have resistec
of Linear A (12tr
een deciphered sc

»

1
i
>

DECIPHERMENT OF THE INDUS SCRIPT

The excavations of the royal ruins at Moenjo Daro have so far penetrated up to the depth of thirty
feet only. The evidence of civilization, however, lies buried to a depth of thirty more feet. It is
still possible that excavations may lead to something like Rosetta Stone with inscriptions in the
Indus script along with a writing system that is still known to the world, for example, Brahmi,
Kharoshtic, and Devnagri of South Asian origin, Aramaic, Hieroglyphic or Cuneiform of the
Middle Eastern origin. Such a discovery might lead to the decipherment of the language or
languages of the Indus script.

The possible methods of decipherment of the Indus script used by scholars so far can be
classified into two groups:

1. All those methods which have concentrated on directing research towards
internal structure of the Indus script without reference to any external source.

2. All those methods which have directed their research towards proving some sort
of relationship with other scripts and languages of the contemporary civilizations.

Research On Internal Structure Of the Indus Script:

There has been ample basic research work concentrating mainly on internal structure of the Indus
script leading to reducing the inscriptions into writing and enumerating the entire corpus of the
signs, marks, and pictorial representations so much so that each and every sign has an
identification number now. This kind of work has been carried out with the hope that some of the
findings of the olden times would be useful to future researchers in deciphering the script. For
example, we know that when some of the ancient writings underwent statistical and structural
analysis, it led to their decipherment. By now it has become easy to carry out the structural and
statistical analysis of the Indus script on computer. However, it has still remained an unresolved
difficulty to work out the structural patterns of the Indus script which can be "translated into a
language.'

Concentrating on the signs of the Indus script, Rotham Mahedevan, an Indian scholar and expert,
made appropriate studies on the Indus script from 1973-1977, and published his findings in
1977. 1 Finnish scholars Kimmo Koskenniemi and Asko Parpola have been busy in their studies
of the Indus script since early seventies. A Russian team under the leadership of Y. Knorozov,
and a number of other groups have been busy during the last three decades, all concentrating on
analyses of the internal structure of the script. Although all these studies have added to our
understanding of various approaches towards resolving the decipherment problem, none of them
has so far achieved any plausible and tangible results.

Research On External Relationships

According to the second methodology, some of the scholars have endeavoured to study the Indus
script comparing it with other ancient writing systems and languages. The research according to
this methodology has taken the following three directions:

1 . The Sumerian- Semitic Hypothesis:

Adhering to this methodology, some of the scholars have come to certain conclusions having
compared character structures and pictograms (or ideograms) of the characters found on the
seals. The research could also be based on a pre-supposed hypothesis assuming that a certain
language is the language depicted in the Indus script. Earlier scholars tried to show that the
language of the script could have some relationship with Sumerian, Hurrian, Elamite, Indo-
European, or Munda families. Besides Hunter's pioneering work, S.V.K. Wilson's research is

-5

also based on such a hypothesis. One of such studies was R. Hunter's book The Script of
Harrapa and Moenjo Daw and its Connection with other Scripts published in 1934. One of the
claims of Hunter's research was about the direction of the writing. He said that the script, too
short as the examples of the text were, ran from right to left, or occasionally, when the text was
long enough to run into the second line, it was based on the boustrophedon. This means that the
script, running from right to left, when it comes to the end of the first line, it goes down to the
second line and returns running from left to write. This is the way the oxen plough a field. Hence
the name (bous = ox, + strophedon = to return). Another thing we learned from Hunter was that
the Indus script would not be accessible to us unless we had a thorough understanding of the
hieroglyphics, cuneiform, and other ancient scripts.

2. The Dravidian Hypothesis:

Another hypothesis, although based on rather flimsy grounds, seems to be popular with some of
the research scholars nowadays. It is based on the assumption that the language that has been
depicted in the Indus script is a sort of Dravidian language. The perpetrators of this hypothesis
reject out-right the earlier assumptions that the language of the Indus script could have some
relationship with Sumerian, Hurrian, Elamite, Indo-European, or Munda families. Working on
the assumption that some Dravidian speaking people had lived at one time in the Indus valley
who gave birth to the Indus civilization that is depicted in the Indus script before moving on to
South India and Ceylon, they insist that the Indus Script could be deciphered only if its language
were considered to be related to modern Tamil, Telegu, or Kanadda. In order to prove the
relationship of Dravidian people with the Indus civilization, such scholars have argued after Sir
Denys Bray that Brahvi people living in the border areas of modern Sindh were a remnant of the
Dravidian people and that the modern Brahvi language is a Dravidian language. In order to prove
their point, Sir Brays followers argue that the Brahvi language has elements cognate to the
Dravidian languages. Although there is yet to be a substantial research to prove such a point, the
only evidence from a Brahvi speaking scholar, Nasser Brohi, in his Studies in Brahui History
(1977) is a vehement denial of Brahui having anything to do with the Dravidian group. Besides,
there are scholars who speak of about twenty languages in the family of Dravidian languages,
some of the northern dialects being Kuroukh, Malto, and Brahvi. However, when comparing the
Indus script with words of a Dravidian language, all the scholars have so far attempted to do is to
acquire the evidence from the Dravidian languages spoken in southern India and Ceylon at
present, ignoring altogether the Brahvi language or other members of the northern Dravidian
group. Obviously the southern Dravidian languages are thousands of miles away from Sindh and
Punjab, the citadels of Indus valley civilization as well as living custodians of the local languages

which are quite different from both Sanskrit and the Dravidian group. Some scholars, in their
fervour of the new found "reality' of comparative grammars, have even gone so far as to claim
for the modern Sindhi language an honourable place among the members of the Dravidian
family. 5

Working on the Dravidian hypothesis, the Scandinavian and Indian scholars have selected some
words and phrases from the ancient Dravidian languages of South India and compared their
meanings, semantics, and structures with the structures of the Indus script. The Scandinavian
scholar Asko Parpola and his team, working on such a hypothesis, claim to have made some
tentative progress. More recently, K.K. Raman of Madras declared (in daily The Muslim,
Islamabad, January 7, 1988) that he had succeeded, on the basis of Old Dravidian assumption, in
finding the key to the decipherment of the Indus Script. Nevertheless, in spite of all the numerous
claims, it seems, this lock of the Indus script had apparently been prepared by the great smiths of
yore that is not likely to yield to such foreign-made keys so easily. The basic flaw in this
methodology is obvious: first the scholars call the Indus Civilization a Dravidian civilization on
the basis of a deceptive and self -perpetuating assumption that Brahui is a remnant of the Indus
civilization and that Brahui is a Dravidian language, and hence Indus Civilization a Dravidian
civilization. Having thus "established' Dravidianism of the Indus Civilization as a v fact,' the
scholars travel a thousand miles to the South of India to find a key to unlock the lock of Indus
Script, on the basis of their assumption. If Brahui is a remnant of Dravidian family of languages
and if Indus Civilization was a Dravidian civilization, the obvious language to explore for
finding a key to the Indus Script would be Brahui, not Tamil or Telegu of South India. However,
instead of looking into Brahui or any other local languages for help, the scholars prefer travelling
more than a thousand miles to the shores of South India on the wings of Dr. R Caldwell's A
Comparative Grammar of The Dravidian or South Indian Family of Languages, written in 1875
to find a key to the decipherment of the Indus Script without having had a first hand experience
of either Brahui or South Indian Dravidian languages. This is like trying to decipher Linear A
inscription with the help of modern Pushto, assuming that some Cretan Greeks had come to the
land of v Pactans' when Alexander had invaded India, as related by Herodotus in his Histories.
Whatever natural or man-made calamities a civilization may have encountered, there is no proof
from any civilization that all people of an area would move on to another land, leaving the land
to be occupied by the newcomers. If this were true, Baghdad would have no one but Mongols for
its inhabitants, and Delhi no one but Afsharis from Shiraz and white-skinned people from the
Great Britain living there. When hordes of Caucasian Indo-Aryans migrated to Iran, India, and
Europe, they did not leave their lands uninhabited. The Caucasian lands are still over peopled by
Armenians, Georgians, and Azerbaijanis who are still fighting among themselves. In order to
decipher the ancient Indus Script, researchers will have to stop looking for external evidence and
start looking nearer the bed of this ancient civilization for a key that would open the ancient lock.

3. The indigenous Language (Sindhu) Hypothesis:

In order to resolve this problem on a rather firm rational ground, a third hypothesis can be
presented basing on the assumption that the key to the decipherment of the Indus script may be
found right in the land where it had been lost— Indus Valley. The decipherment could, perhaps,
be worked out looking into the words and phrases of the language of the Indus valley, the
language of the land itself, Sindhi of the peasants, as it has remained unaffected throughout the
centuries.

One objection to this hypothesis could be that Sindhi, being a language of the modern times, can
not be considered to have been related with the language of the ancient times of the Indus valley.
However, the same objection can be raised against the Dravidian hypothesis since it is hard to
imagine that the Dravidic vocabulary items which have been in use in modern times in South
India, and whose meanings are known to people in modern times thousands of miles away from
the place of its origin, were spoken in ancient times in the Indus valley and were used in the
ancient "Indus script' writing of the seals. If, according to the Dravidian hypothesis, some of the
words of the ancient Dravidian languages could be claimed to have been the remnants of the
"ancient Indus script', there is a still better possibility that some of the ancient words in the
modern Sindhi language could be remnants of "the language of the Ancient Sindhi Civilisation'.
The historical analysis of the Sindhi language has proved that some of the common nouns and
proper names, which are in current use today, were in use in Sindh at least thirteen hundred years
earlier at the time of the Arab conquest of Sindh (712 AD) as they appear in the monumental
work Fat-h- Nama Sindh. It can also be argued that such words as were in use in the 8th century
of the Common Era and were recorded by historians could have been in use in Sindh for
hundreds of years earlier as well before they were recorded by Arab scholars. According to the
evidence available in present times, the last phase of the "Indus civilization' continued up to the
18th Century B.C. However, it is also possible that this phase lasted long time afterwards and, as
the people continued to inhabit the earth, the language or languages spoken during that phase
remained in vogue. Although availability of written records proves the existence of a civilization,
non-availability of definitive records does not prove non-existence of a people or their language.
All it proves is that, for whatever reason, the solid structures of urban life ceased to exist, giving
way to temporary perishable structures of rural life. But human beings continued to live and
continued to speak a language or languages that they had always spoken. Our inaccessibility to
written or archeological records does not prove that the entire population of Indus valley had
ceased to exist during the "historical gap.' The existence and continuity of a civilization does not
depend upon any written records. It is difficult to presume that the entire population of a land
would just perish or migrate without leaving any descendants behind. Even if we were to
presume that the language of the Indus civilization had died away as a spoken language like
Sumerian, Assyrian, Sanskrit, Latin, and others, it must have left behind some words, names of
persons and their castes or ethnic groups, names of trees, plants, herbs and shrubs, animals,
household goods, and building materials. There is a possibility that some of the words used by
the people of the Indus civilization could still be prevalent among the inhabitants of the remote
areas of Sindh where external influences have not been in abundance.

Any way, this is just one of those hypotheses which can be used to analyse and decipher the
"Indus script'. However, in order to carry this hypothesis through to its logical end, we (the
Sindhi speaking peoples) have to play our part. If we can not do the research in its entirety, we
could at least provide word corpus to the people who are carrying out the research. In this regard,
all we have to do is choose and distinguish the words from the Sindhi Dictionary which have not
been borrowed from Persian, Arabic, Pali, Sanskrit, or any other known language of the
"historical' period. However, if such words are suspected to have been related to the ancient
languages like Dravidian, Proto-Vedic, Munda, Sumerian, Egyptian (Coptic), Babylonian, or
Akkadian, such words could be retained in the list of the experimental vocabulary for the time
being.

It is not easy to select such words. However, in order to take the first step and to instigate further
thinking in this direction, a short list of Sindhi words is presented here. This conjectural list could

be expanded and improved upon by other scholars after further consideration.
The following is a list of a few selected words used in modern Sindhi which are considered to be
of ancient origin. There are many other words which would be still older which would have to be
considered during any experiments towards deciphering the Indus script. It is expected that some
of these words would be the words in the inscriptions of the Indus script. Although, apparently,
there are great many hurdles in the way of deciphering the Indus script, there is a vast room for
those who wish to explore the possibilities of the research.

A PRELIMINARY LIST OF THE OLD SINDHI LANGUAGE

1. Words related with human relationships

Ada, Ado, Adi, Adiyoon Brother/s, sister/s

ghote bride groom

kunwaar bride

Beli helper, assistant, servant

2. Words Related with cooking, food

maani bread, food
DaGar Bread
dodho Thick bread
Dhaw Satiation
Taandoa burning coal
Chulih Fire-place
baah Fire

3. Words for Household Goods

GhaRo Dilo, water-jar
Mattu larger water jar
Dakhi Smaller jar for milk
ChaaDia larger earthen pot for milk
Kheeru milk

lassi saltish water-milk

4. Words related with birth and anatomical parts

Dhuki a female pregnant animal, big with child

Suwa a female milk giving animal

Viyaaee delivered a child

viyaau off- spring

Jarru The thin covering around the new-bom baby

tanjanu The piece of cloth for wrapping around the new-born child restricting the

activity of its limbs when sleeping

Thu:nth elbow

Dawnro Upper arm Muscle

KhuRhi heel, back of the foot

paBu lower part of the front of the foot

Booth face, mouth

10

5.

Words related with Residence

Waandhi

temporary residence

Bunbho

front of the house, the door

loRho

fence of thorny branches of trees around a house

kiRi:

a small house made of temporary materials.

6.

Weapons of hunt, attack, and defence

dondanu

a clay- stone

Mutko

a round piece of stone to be held in closed palm, the muth

Lakunu

a thin stick or staff

chahbuk

a whip made of a wet branch

7.

Words related with cattle and other animals

Daand

a bull

dhaGGo,

a bull

dhaGGi

a cow

wahuRo

a young male calf

wahuRi:

a young female calf, heifer

Ridha

a female sheep

ghatto

a male sheep

pahoon

a sheep

Saanhu

a male animal for breeding

pahoon

female goats

panhoonwar

a shepherd

Daagho

a male camel

Daachee

a female camel

karaho

a swift male camel,

ramaRu

a group of cattle etc.

dhaNNu

a group of sheep or goat

8.

Words related with land, mountains

potho

a prairie, a straight land, with or without grass

Wiyyu

a grazing pasture

khariRo

a dry piece of land which has not had water for a while

Dongar

a mountain, a hill

takkaru

a hill, a mountain

9.

Words related with agriculture/ cultivation

urlo/ hurlo

a mechanism to lift water for irrigation

khaRRiploug

tied land

khaRRo

A clay piece after the land is plowed

bhanjhoo

a cultivated land in which seed has been cast, waiting for water

gappa

mud,

10.

words related with Minerals

.Baat

a mixed metal (alloy) to make utensils

.kuttu

a mixed metal (alloy) to make utensils or ornaments

11

11.

Words for Wind, Rain

.GaRo, GaRa

hail, hailstorm

.KhinwaNi

lightening

12.

Words related with Water, fish, fishermen

.Dhandha

lake

.kuriRo

a kind of fish

Jaruko

a kind of fish

•gowj

a kind of fish

.pallow

a kind of fish, hilsa fish

.Meid

fishermen

.mayya

fishermen

.muhaaNaa

fishermen

.ghaattu

divers, those who catch fish in the deep sea

13.

Words related with measurement, weights, balances

.kaano

a bamboo rod of a man's height to measure distances and length of a
grave; the rod of the balance (Also used in Akkadian
languages),

.MaNNu

a weight of varying mass (also used in Akkadian language)

.lappa

palm full

.muthi

what comes in one palm when it is closed

.Buku

what comes within two open hands when they are held together

.glran:th

span (from the tip of the small finger to the tip of the thumb when
out- stretched

.Ba:lu:

span of distance from the tip of the index finger to the tip of the thimb

.Hathu

distance from thu:nth to the tip of the outstretched fingers

14.

Ordinal/Cardinal Numbers (for counting)

.Barakhu

One (from either good, or Barakat of Arabic, meaning blessed)

Ba

Two

.chawnk

foursome

15.

Colours

.achho white

.sa:o

green

.ni:ro blue

.Ga:Rho

red

.pi:lo yellow

r

16.

Dwelling structures

.manahun

a thatched house, without side walls?

.Chhaparu

a thatched house

.aDa:wat

structure

12

TABLE: SHOWING BASIC LEXICON USED
GLOTTOCHRONOLGY: ENGLISH-SINDHI

Note: B, J, D, G =implosives, N= retroflex nasal, R= retroflex, c= ch,
(aspirated),

IN

ch= chh

English

Sindhi

English

Sindhi

English

Sindhi

English

Sindhi

All

Samura

fat

thulho

man

ma:Nhu

Sleep

Ninda

Ashes

Cha:ru

feather

khanbh

many

ghaNa,
jujha:

Small

nandho

Bark

ChoDo

fire

ba:hi

meat

ma:su

Smoke

du:nhun

Belly

petu,

fish

machhi

moon

chandu

Stand

bi:hu

big

WaDo

fly

uDa:mu

mountain

Dongar
Takaru

Star

ta:ro

bird

Pakhee

foot

peiru

mouth

wa:tu

Stone

patharu

bite

Chaku

full

bharial

name

na:lo

Sun

sijju

black

ka:ro

give

Dey

neck

Gichi:

Swim

tarru

Blood

Rattu

good

sutho

new

nau:n

Tail

puch

Bone

HaDo

green

sa:o

night

raati

That

ta, uho

Breast

Cha:ti

hair

wa:ra

nose

nakku

This

hi:u

Burn

SaRaNu/
BaraNu

hand

hathu

not

na

Thou

tu:n

Claw

Chanbo

head

matho

one

hikku

Tongue

Jibha

Cloud

Kakara

hear

buDhu

person

JaNu:

Tooth

Dandu

Cold

thadho

heart

dilli

rain

mkhun

Tree

waNun

Come

achu

horn

singu

red

Ga:Rho

Two

Ba:

Die

maraNu

I

a:un

road

rasto

Walk

ghumu

Dog

kutto

kill

ma:ri

root

pa:Ra

Warm

gar am

Drink

pi:

knee

goDo

round

golu

Water

pa:Ni

Dry

sukal

know

Ja:Nu

sand

wa:ri:

we

asln

Ear

kannu

leaf

patto

say

chaw

what

Chaa:

Earth

dharti

lie

ku:Ru

see

Disu

white

acho

Eat

kha:u

liver

jeyro

seed

Bijju

who

keiru

Egg

a:nu:

long

digho

sit

wehu

woman

ma:ee

Eye

akhi

louse

jun

skin

khalla

yellow

pi:lo

13

Bibliography/ References:

1. Rotham Mahedevan: Indus Script: Texts, Concordance, and Tables, Delhi, 1977.

2. Kimmo Koskenniemi and Asko Parpola: Corpus of Texts in INDUS SCRIPT,
Department of Asian and African Studies, University of Helsinki, 1979.

3. S.V.K Wilson: Indo-Sumerian: A New Approach For the Problem Of The Indus Script,
Oxford, 1974.

4. R. Hunter, The Script of Harrapa and Moenjo Daw and its Connection with other
Scripts. London, 1934.

5. See Dr. G. Allana, Sindhi Bolia Jo Bunnu Bunyad, Zeb Adabi Markaz, Hyderabad, Sindh,
1974, pp. 33-116. This study, however, is based on Dr. R. Caldwell's work A Comparative
Grammar of the Dravidian or South Indian Family of Languages, 1875.

However, readers need to keep in mind two facts that the author had had no first hand knowledge
of any Dravidian language, and that he had not been aware of what linguistic science recognizes
as "linguistic universals' in languages which would help us compare Sindhi with Japanese,
Chinese, Alaskan, or Ugaritic languages without proving that Sindhi had anything to do with
Japanese, Chinese, Alaskan, or Ugaritic languages.

Page prepared by Muhammad Umar Chand,

Aalso published in in the Journal of Bahawalpur University

14